


to love another is to see the face of god

by timtam



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, sort of meta of the last episode, the boyle-linnetti wedding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-15 23:59:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3466865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timtam/pseuds/timtam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I watched what might be the most beautiful and my most favourite 20 minutes of television that I've ever seen and possibly WILL ever see today. It was an episode that was about Love, in all of its forms. </p><p>(In which I got very upset about someone saying this episode did nothing for Jake/Amy and rambled on about love for a while.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	to love another is to see the face of god

I watched what might be the most beautiful and my most favourite 20 minutes of television that I've ever seen and possibly WILL ever see today. It was an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine in which Boyle and Gina's parents got married. It was an episode that was about Love, in all of its forms. It made me cry at least twice. 

It was about the bond between a parent and a child, that special specific weirdness you share with them that no one else could understand, the way they know you better than anyone in the world because they were there for all of the everything that you ever went through and that ever happened to you, the way you want to give them perfect moments and perfect happiness because they gave you so much and you love them so much and even after all these years even when you are a proper adult who doesn't live at home and doesn't see them every day they still know you best and even if you aren't entirely happy about it you WILL make sure that everything is perfect for them and you WILL break important traditions if they need you, you will do everything you can for them, but also sometimes there are things that you don't know about your parents, things they can't talk to you about, or times that you can't say what they need to hear to comfort them, and that's okay too, that doesn't diminish anything at all, no matter what happens or which other people your parent loves, they will always love you special, and being replaced is not something you need to worry about in any way shape or form because love is unconditional and you know that and your parent knows that and you will each other forever and always, and there is a certainty there, and that is love. 

It was about taking leaps, and being brave, and being emotionally vulnerable, and how there's no gain if you don't risk it all occasionally, and how there's nothing to be afraid of when it comes to telling someone that you love that you love them, or marrying someone you love, because things could go badly later, you could break up with that person that you love at the moment in a horrible messy way, you could end up merely not loving them any more at some intangible point in the future, but it doesn't matter because you love them now, you will be happy together now, and maybe it will work out, maybe you and the person you love will love each other forever, maybe it'll crash and burn spectacularly, but you'll never know if you don't try, and if you don't try you'll regret it forever, and the people that try again and again, even if everything works out badly each time, aren't stupid or silly or naive for hoping that this time it'll be good, those people are the bravest and the best and the brightest, because they love and they keep loving and they fall down and they get back up and they get back up and they KEEP getting back up even when it seems impossible, and they fall in love again, and it's all worth it in the end, because if you don't try, if you don't doing the thing, keep giving that gift, keep getting married after knowing the other person for a few weeks, keep bravely loving and boldly leaping, that thing that history, or society, or other people, are telling you not to do, not to even try to do, then you have no chance at all of anything going right, and so you risk it all again and again because each time is glorious and wonderful and important, even if it hurts, sometimes especially if it hurts, and the person standing in front of you right now is so beautiful to you, and they are worth the risk, what you might have together is WORTH THE RISK, and so you leap to maybe a soft feather bed or maybe your death, and you keep doing it even when you keep ending up dead, because you love this person and maybe this time the two of you will land on the bed and stay there forever, and you'll never know if you don't try, and that is love. 

It was about how sometimes you have an idea of a person in your head that isn't necessarily true but that you've believed entirely for so many years that it feels like an irrefutable fact, and you're so convinced that this one person, who was maybe the first person you properly had a crush on, who was maybe the person you never got a chance with, or who cut your chance short quickly and early on, who you otherwise would probably have grown tired of and broken up with and gotten over, but you didn't, but you never had the chance, and so you are convinced that this person is the one, and finally they're available, and you will do anything to get what you feel is rightfully your girl, your perfect person who you will fall passionately and mutually in love with and be together with forever, or at least be with for that night and get that slow dance you never got the first time, and you can be so convinced that this person who you don't really know is the one for you that you completely ignore the people who are right next to you, the person that you actually talk to and have fun with and trust and KNOW, the person that you know really incredibly well, who makes you laugh, who isn't just an idea you've been caught on for years, but who is a real whole flesh-and-blood fully-faceted human being who you could maybe love if you gave yourself a chance, who could maybe love you if you asked her out, but instead you are caught up on this unreal dream, and then your dreams are crushed, and suddenly you realise that this person that you actually know and could maybe love is standing right next to you, has been standing next to you this whole time, helping you and fighting crime with you and joking with you, and now she's there again pointing out that that girl you're maybe going to have to get un-hung-up-on now is not as great as you've built her up to be, and she throws a distraction your way, and you think she's asking you to dance and you say yes and she presents you with an old lady who'd like to dance and she is teasing you and laughing at you and you are dancing with a handsy old lady at a wedding while a love song plays and you can't take your eyes of this person that you liked once and were rejected by, and then you dated someone else and told yourself you'd moved on, and then found out that she'd liked you once, but you'd moved on and were dating someone else you liked so it didn't matter, and now you're both single but you're telling each other that you've put all of that behind you and you don't like each other any longer. you're just friends, except you've been flirting with each a LOT, and you know each other really well, and sometimes you act like a married couple, and you work on the same wavelength a lot of the time, and you both make each other better, and earlier that day you jokingly asked if she was proposing and she played along and you were laughing together and one-upping each other and having so much fun together, and wow you could maybe love her if you gave yourself the chance except you're lying to yourself and somewhere inside you know that you love her already, have loved her for a long time of course because she's one of your best friends, but also you're in love with her, at least a little bit, and you're maybe too scared to ask again because you told her twice that you had feelings for her, and she was dating someone else and she said no, and it hurt, a LOT, and everything's fine now, and you have so much fun together, and you LIKE her so MUCH, and if you ask her again, maybe she'll say no, and that would crush you, and maybe she wouldn't be your best friend any more, and you can't risk that at all, so you're waiting, a little bit, and you're not expecting anything, but you are in love, and you are hoping, and maybe one day something will happen between you two, but until it does you have what you have had for so long you can barely remember a time before it, you have a desk partner who makes fun of you and who you make fun of, you have a detective partner who makes the drudgery of police work more fun, you have someone who challenges you to be better, to be more responsible, someone who needs occasional reminders to trust herself and not be dependent on what her bosses think, someone who you challenge to be better, and it is enough for now, it is more than enough, if this is all you ever get to have of her, well that's a lot, that's so much, that's plenty, and you are happy to spend your days trying to make her life, and maybe something will happen and maybe it won't, but either way you know that you love each other and want the best for each other, and that is love. 

It was about love, which is unquantifiable, which is utterly transcendent, which is greater than each of us, which makes human beings more than the sum of their parts, and sometimes you have to write a speech about love, and you think you're going to do it logically and simply, you're going to say things which are absolutely 100% factual, things which can be proven, nothing fanciful or grand at all, but then you are up their and you're speaking and you don't quite know what to say and you're nervous, but then you look at the face of the person you love, and you are filled with certainty, and your nerves aren't there any more, and suddenly you are speaking poetry, you are speaking of things that cannot be proven or quantified, you are speaking in high metaphor, you are speaking of dreams, and because you are saying things which are not certainly real, what you are saying is realer and more important than anything else you could have said would have been, and that is love.

**Author's Note:**

> i don't LOVE this, it's a bit clunky, but i feel like the spirit of it is important, and i don't currently hate it, so i'm going to post it now, bc i'll probably hate it tomorrow, and even if it's terrible, at least this account isn't connected to anywhere else on the internet, so anyway i hope you liked it!


End file.
